This happens more frequently than you thought.

Even right now, if you try to swallow saliva multiple times as fast as you can, consecutively; you will hit a "bottleneck" :)

Oesophagus, operates on a rhythm, of which is initiated by the back of your tongue (where tonsils hit)

But, oesophagus, having mind of its own (involuntary); does not accept initiated rhythm, if it's "out of timing"

This "timing" is dictated by the way muscle contract and relax as they push saliva you just swallowed down into your tummy. Nasty yet brilliant ain't it?

Ask him to eat more fruit, drink water and give up cigarettes

You should get an endoscopy of your esophagus. A narrowed esophagus can have several reasons.

• Reflux

• Food intolerance

• Fungal infection

This post was a good deal more innocent than I thought it was going to be.

And quite interesting.

It's a bit of a nightmare though how sometimes it's the inability to swallow that sends people into care when they age or get crook.

Swallowing problems can be serious, you should see a doctor urgently.

You may want to look into a condition called EoE also known as Eosinophilic esophagitis. If that's the problem, you'll certainly want to see your doctor.

Swallowing requires coordination of a lot of different muscles. Do you mean that you can’t get the swallowing process to start or that you swallow and food doesn’t go down all the way?

I had a lot of problems with the latter when I was sick with undiagnosed celiac and later developing type 1 diabetes. I’d swallow fine, but it would feel like the food was stuck in my sternum and it was very miserable. They couldn’t find anything physically wrong with my esophagus at the time. My interpretation was the esophagus was inflamed from acid reflux and thus narrowed.